The Case for Conservation Podcast

From time to time certain concepts rise to prominence in biodiversity conservation circles, and some of these follow in the footsteps of climate change analogs. One such concept is biodiversity credits. Biodiversity credits are a mechanism that allow for biodiversity conservation or restoration activities to derive a revenue stream through the production and sale of a quantifiable unit of improvement in biodiversity. Despite the technical and philosophical challenges involved in trading in biodiversity credits, or even defining a single unit, biodiversity credits are being used to offset damages to biodiversity. And given the explosion of private and public interest in biodiversity credits, they are worthy of further exploration. Helping us to explore them is Harrison Carter, an interdisciplinary conservation scientist at the University of Oxford’s Biology Department. Harrison has studied biodiversity credits in detail and shares his personal views on this complex topic. This is a fairly technical conversation, but non-conservationists should still find it interesting, and it gets easier as it goes along. We talk about the good and the bad around biodiversity credits, starting with a broad description of the concept. Links to resources:What is a unit of nature? A webpage from the University of Oxford's Department of Biology about biodiversity credits including Harrison's workWhat is a unit of nature? Measurement challenges in the emerging biodiversity credit market - 2024 paper in the peer-reviewed jouirnal, PLOS ONEVisit www.case4conservation.com

Half a century ago a group of more than 2,000 scientists signed a warning of environmental crisis and nuclear war. Named after the French town where it was compiled, the “Menton Message” turned out to be somewhat hyperbolic in its environmental predictions, and did not account for some of humankind’s remarkable developmental progress over the following decades. However, some of its concerns certainly remain prescient today. And so another, smaller, group of scientists convened, on the 50-year anniversary of the Menton Message, to revisit and modernize some of its assertions. The resulting document is “A letter to fellow citizens of Earth”, which was also summarized in an article for the journal “Nature”. It makes three key points:“individualistic, materialistic, exploitative short-term thinking has led us to lose sight of the public good”“a focus on economic growth distracts from achieving well-being and happiness… and… destroys our shared resources”“current economic, political and social institutions are failing us”Although the new letter acknowledges some of the progress that we have made since the Menton Message, it emphasizes the threats and asserts the urgent need for change. Sharachchandra Lele is one of the two main authors of the 2022 letter, and the Nature article. I pushed him on the accuracy of some of the letter’s claims and assertions. The resulting conversation interrogates different aspects of the letter, and questions the idea that we are on completely the wrong track to make things right. Our conversation jumps around a bit and does not follow the sequence of the letter. But it’s about more than the letter. It’s about the notion that we need to drastically change the way we run the planet and how to affect those changes. This episode and episode 48 with Ron Bailey function as counter-points to each other, so they can be listened to as a set.Links to resourcesThe Menton Message - The original French version of the message (the English is probably available online somewhere)A letter to fellow citizens of Earth - The follow-up to the Menton Message, compiled by Sharad and othersFifty years after UN environment summit, researchers renew call for action - 2022 correspondence in the journal, Nature, co-authored by Sharad, and summarizing "A letter to fellow citizens of Earth"Visit www.case4conservation.com

International organizations, or “IOs” for short, are typically organizations to which multiple countries belong as members. They cover virtually every aspect of human endeavor and there are many that are related to environmental protection. International organizations may influence our lives quite profoundly and yet, outside our own field, we might struggle to name more than a few of them. Furthermore, it has been proposed that most of them are not functioning entities, but rather so-called“zombie organizations”.That’s what Julia Gray has suggested. Julia is an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who has been researching zombie organizations for years. She joins me to explain how zombie organizations come about; why we don’t notice them; and what are their consequences.Links to resourcesLife, Death, or Zombie? The Vitality of International Organizations - A 2018 article on the topic of zombie organizations, in International Studies QuarterlyThe Montreal Protocol - Background on The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, to which we refer in the episodeCARICOM - This is a link to the website of the Caribbean Community, to which Julia refers at the end of the episodeVisit www.case4conservation.com

Protection of the environment is strongly associated with regulation of the human activities that threaten it, and regulation is usually administered by government. Although almost everyone would probably agree that some regulation is necessary, regulation has a patchy record when it comes to environmental protection. And there is another approach to achieving environmental goals. Free market environmentalism, instead of protecting nature from market forces, harnesses those forces to protect nature. Or at least that's the idea.Ronald Bailey is the longtime science writer for Reason Magazine, a renowned American libertarian news & opinion outlet that’s been around for more than 50 years. Ron joins me to flesh out the case for free market environmentalism.Links to resourcesRonald Bailey - Ron's profile page on the Reason websiteThe limits to growth - 1972 book about the possibility of exponential economic and population growthPopulation bomb - 1968 book by Paul Erlich that speculated about the dangers of overpopulationSilent Spring - 1962 book by Rachel Carson about the effects of pesticide on the environment and peopleEnvironmentalists Shocked That Local People Protect Forests Better Than Do Governments - 2014 article of Ron’s in Reason Magazone, including links to further information, about how indigenous peoples and local communities can be good stewards of the environemntThe Environmental Trinity — 2024 article by Jesse Ausubel about ecomodernism and decoupling from resource-useOur World in Data - A website that shows global trends in easy-to-grasp graphic formatVisit www.case4conservation.com